Infectious

Rating: Null/10 (4 March 2004)

Before any real review of this movie can be done, there needs to be some clarification on the genre of the picture. The film was marketed as pure horror in the United States. While this angle definitely worked to pack the theaters, it was not a completely accurate summation of the nature of the movie. The movie is first and foremost a post-apocalyptic drama. There are horror aspects, yes, but it is not a scare-a-minute zombie film by any means. This distinction is what makes the film so great.

A group of animal rights activists raid a primate research lab. In doing so, they release an infection that turns its victims into raging murderers. The infection is carried in blood and will infect a person in less than thirty seconds. A brutal opening to the movie leads into the haunting title of the movie and takes us ahead 28 days later when we meet our hero, Jim (Cillian Murphy).
Jim, a bicycle courier involved in an accident the day the infection was released, has just awoken from a comatose state. As Jim begins to discover that he is quite possibly alone in London, the audience is treated to dazzling shots of an empty, abandoned city. This sequence also highlights perfectly the amazing use of music found throughout the film.

Jim eventually finds himself under the care of two other survivors. Mark (Noah Huntley) and Selena (Naomie Harris) have been living on the run and have managed to stay alive. It is Selena who explains to Jim that the world as he knew it the day of his accident is gone. Everyone she, Mark and Jim have known and loved is dead and anyone left alive is left to run from the infected that roam free. The group makes its way to Jim's home and there is an extremely touching series of scenes that take place.

Jim also meets a father and daughter pair. The father, Frank (Brendan Gleeson), and daughter, Hannah, have caught a signal from an army officer that proclaims an end to infection. As the group sets off to find these soldiers the movie takes its first major shift in tone as it becomes a road movie for a bit. There will be one more shift in tone after the road trip is over, but it is this tone that most will find surprising and the acceptance of the change of events in the movie is what will determine if you enjoy the movie or not.
I found this movie to be brilliant for unusual reasons. The script itself is nothing new, amazing or all the clever in itself. What makes the movie work so well is a combination of the paranoia found in the first and last sections of the movie, excellent actors that bring a scary sense of believability to the screen and the use of digital video to enhance the raw nature of the events onscreen. Danny Boyle has been, for my money, a very hit or miss director, but has always managed to bring clever and ultimately engaging images to the screen. In 28 Days Later, Boyle takes his digital images and enhances them to make almost every shot memorable. This, combined with several fine examples of how to use music to enhance emotion, makes for a film that goes above and beyond its source material to create more of an experience than a film.
28 Days Later was mainly faulted for its third act and its theatrical ending. The third act takes a turn as the group of survivors end their road trip and meet up with the soldiers claiming to have the answer to infection. While this is an unexpected direction for the movie, I don't fault the film for it. The scenes found in this final section of the film contain the best dialogue and some quality horror elements. I may also be one of the few that actually enjoyed the ending as seen in the theaters. I do, however, understand and am frustrated by a few unanswered questions.